I will preface this by saying I understand that I am more radical, revolutionary, and extreme of a leftist than most. Despite that, I still ask that you actually engage with this as I’m asking in good faith.
When is enough enough? We have elected a fascist into the highest office and handed the keys to him and his friends. Is now not the time to actually get organized, involved, and armed? In my opinion, the time for peaceful, democratic means of avoiding fascism was before the election. But we have failed to do so, and as such there will soon be a tyrant in power. Are we going to wait until troops are rolling down the street to stage any form of resistance, because by then it’s far too late. Now I want to be clear that I am not advocating for random acts of violence or an insurrection like January 6th. But is this not a point of radicalization? Is this not where we start organizing within our communities and getting involved in mutual aid and resistance? How much more do we need before people are actually ready to stand, fight, and maybe even die to avoid continuing down the path that we are on? Fascism is not on the horizon, it is here. Are we really to do nothing about it as a society except lay down and accept our fate? Because that doesn’t jive with me. That makes absolutely no sense to me.
ETA: To the people responding, I will admit that I was heated and frustrated when writing this post. Having had time to cool off, reflect, and get some differing viewpoints my stance has changed to focus more on what needs to happen first and what’s practical. You may have seen that in my responses. That being said, I don’t disagree with what I said here, and I’m still frustrated we’re at this point at all. I’ve linked a comment though that elaborates upon what I actually want to see done though, which is a lot more reasonable and is still inline with this post.
I understand that wholeheartedly. But I personally refuse to be one of those people that sit back while everything deteriorates. When Hitler was elected a majority did nothing, but many chose resistance. I refuse to be the majority who live as cowards under fascism, so if that means I die resisting then so be it.
Hitler never even got close to a majority in any election. That’s the scary part about this: Trump didn’t even have to seize power, the population just handed it to him.
I don’t think you actually did get my point.
The fascists are the majority. The majority will do nothing because they chose this, and you - the people fighting fascism - are in the minority.
I’m not saying I disagree with you, but it is important to understand that your revolution is actually going against the will of the American people.
You’re right, but resistance is more than just revolution and even if everyone else is ok with living in 1984, I’m not. I know plenty of people who aren’t and I have a feeling the majority of the people where I live aren’t either (especially based on the voting data). Resistance to tyranny and injustice itself is just, and it can take many forms. Ideally yes there would be a revolution to remove the fascists from power and build something better, but that’s mostly lip service. I won’t lie, i was very frustrated when I wrote the post but in cooling down I am remembering that the resistance will have to start small and will have to grow. You’re welcome to see some of my other comments for what I’m talking about that isn’t revolution.
In absolute terms, they aren’t the majority. 73m voted for him out of the 161m eligible voters in the US, or ~45% (Harris has ~43%). Still a frighteningly high number, but it also means it’s possible to find support for resistance, at least if things start to get bad enough. Unfortunately, there are a lot of Americans that like to think that politics don’t concern them and that we should just be apolitical. So they’re going to need a wake-up call first before they would lend their support. Trump will likely give it to them in short order as his fascist policies start to directly affect them.
Also, keep in mind that the total population (~334m as of 2023) is much larger than the population that is eligible to vote. There are many young people that are too young to vote now but still old enough to fight tyranny, former felons who are ineligible to vote but eager to fight oppressive systems, not to mention the scores of people not counted among eligible voters due to not being registered to vote, either through complacency/disillusionment (see above) or active sabotage and disenfranchisement by Republicans (and in many ways, you could say these are one in the same).
Fascists may have power and have won the popular vote, but it doesn’t mean it’s the will of the people. It means they’ve successfully gamed our very broken system. But real, average people living their lives will fight when the oppression comes to them. Maybe it will be too late, but maybe not. Revolution only needs a single spark.